


I Am Losing You To The Sea

by kannst_du_nicht



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, DOTO spoilers, M/M, Reminiscing, a lot of reminiscing, but i do spoil it, but im terrible at tagging, dont remember if dh2 spoilers still get tagged or not, i also spoil dh2 a bit, it isnt canon to doto at ALL, you may not have guessed this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 03:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12334992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kannst_du_nicht/pseuds/kannst_du_nicht
Summary: After all my years in the Void, the edges of his face blur, the stubble on his chin dulls, however hard I’ve tried to hold on. I’ve promised myself I’d remember every hair on his body, every scar, and now as this vessel ages I can only cling to the few fragments of a life we’ve shared.With Corvo long dead, The Outsider struggles to hold onto the cherished moments between him and his dearest Marked.





	I Am Losing You To The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> i had to write a personal narrative for class and this was the result. it's unbetad, so any mistakes are mine
> 
> anyways, i dedicate this fic to the sleep schedule i once had. may you join me again soon.
> 
> (disclaimer- i dont own dishonored or any of its characters, and thats probably for the best)

After all my years in the Void, the edges of his face blur, the stubble on his chin dulls, however hard I’ve tried to hold on. I’ve promised myself I’d remember every hair on his body, every scar, and now as this vessel ages I can only cling to the few fragments of a life we’ve shared. 

Do we ever truly forget someone? The way their mind collides with yours, contempt filling your heart and weighing down your lungs? A soft chuckle, rough hands warming yours, a head of hair graying even as it rests upon your shoulder, moments in a long empty void forgotten to the world he returns to. We return to, for while I have no need for sleep, lying beside his sleeping form I could ignore the scar on my throat for a time.

Will I forget him? The only one to hold me close and expect nothing but the return of an embrace? A quiet wheeze, once sturdy hands shaking ever so slightly, hair as gray as his skin is ashen, soft smiles and reassurances. He asks no favors, wishes not for time or youth or steady hands. 

I was human, once, before my throat was slit and void chased away my blood. My mind had limits, my body even more so, my power over even myself next to nothing. Becoming what I am didn’t break down barriers so much as removed the need for any, the possibilities of what I could do a crushing wave against a mind too brittle for an immortal body.

My name- as I must have had one, I remember it being taken away- has been long forgotten, and with it went any memory of before blade touched skin. I know not of love or affection shown to a boy with hazel eyes, hair black as his eyes are now. I could picture hearts racing as eyes met for terrible, terrible reasons, groans of only agony, hands grabbing with only ill intent. 

He never would have imagined gentle caresses barely felt through the fog of the void, feather light but sparking heat against pale skin. Soft smiles only half awake, stubble catching on pillows when he was more important than a warm breakfast, a body curling around him and arms holding him gentler than he thought man possible. As though he was the most delicate thing he’s ever laid a finger to, something to be cherished and kept safe.

As it is, I am all too familiar with a warmth I thought impossible. I know what it feels like to love and be loved in turn, and in my nine thousand odd years I only once lived through devotion without a whisper of worship.

Knew.

I see the future in a web that never ends, the branches weaving until each chance or choice meets, creating a silk so fine you would never see where one joins another. I, of course, see everything, and with those details in mind anything more than a glance is more than even I can bear even now. 

The present I see the clearest and the least. The present for me is not the present for those outside the void, but is. Small cracks where void leaks out, a woman torn apart and whole again. A gaping tear where humans claw at the void demanding more, turning themselves to wandering stone and sparing no one in their quest to do so. A single point where both void and world have met so many times a single room almost stitched itself into an abyss. Loneliness abated for a time.

The past stands out, but just barely. Nearly lost amidst a sea of fates, a single woven thread stands brighter than the rest, more tangible than the infinite what ifs and if onlys. It stands brighter, catching the fog of shadows and mangling itself behind a haze. I was never fond of stories long ago over, but I absolutely adore him. I could never bare to let ours slip through my hands, and yet, and yet. 

As I'm standing here, toes off the edge, I’m not forgetting him. I’ve tried, I’m doing all I can to keep my dearest, to hold his warmth close. I wish nothing more than for his soul to lie and settle, to chase the crashing wave of our memories to calm, only to have them swallow me whole. 

He, what’s left of him, shatters and reforms in front of me. I, a being who has the gift of seeing all, wouldn’t be able to bear seeing it in the pseudo flesh I reside in now even if I could. Instead, my body, petrified flesh, empty, screaming as stone takes me even as oil fills my lungs and spills from my neck, my body stares a little above his left shoulder, if just a little further left.

The only glimpses of him I could take have been ripped from me by the same wretched creatures that took everything else and brought it back anew. A second sacrifice, and now they’ve taken both my life and love.

I can’t remember. I will never, ever forget him, the fire in his eyes making up for what my own onyx pools lack. But I can’t remember. Any attempt at conjuring his laugh sounds false, too cold, too smooth, it’s not him. His parting words to Jessamine, and later myself, are said as though by someone else. “Goodbye, Jessamine, star of my sky.” too much Serkonan. “Goodbye, Outsi-” his words never carried that lilt, the false recalling stopping before a title can be uttered. “Goo-” wrong. It’s all so wrong. I’m losing him. I’m losing us.

Billie Lurk carried our daughter to the place her father grew up, away from delilah. With a missing eye and one less arm, she ferried our little Em to where delilah came back and nearly brought us all down. Billie Lurk met emily with a single eye and arm, and left with double that and a happier story. It didn’t last. A woman torn apart and made whole, but two paths were shredded and rewritten, the void carefully woven in. Unstable. She planned to take my life, along with Daud who in no paths lived to lay a hand to me. I took what Emily gave in an attempt to sate the void until Billie Lurk could succeed. I gave her power, the tools to either end it all or bring me to him with a light and beating heart. I was four thousand years old and once more scared of forever. I am now nine thousand, nearing ten. It could be forever until another has a chance of… relieving me.

Whales weep, their number having increased long ago by Empress Emily The Wise, who once bore my mark while the very stone that traps me encased him. Who asked for stories before bed, stole sweets before dinner. The little girl who watched her mother die and her father blamed for it in addition to her own disappe-arance, the woman she became as she took back an empire with enough power to fell one. His, and later our, daughter. Her hair could be any color. I’ve nearly forgotten his.

I once could trace every scar that littered his skin without a second thought. I knew ever callous, the story behind each mark left behind from split or burning skin. The months spent in Coldridge left a mark on his soul almost deeper than my own. Where it bent him and snapped, acted as shrapnel in a wound, I did no more than aid. His soul melded with the void, shown by the mark on his hand. A different mark, the love of a god, warm and soft cradled behind ribs broken and healed time and time again.

Do we ever truly forget someone? It’s a truth I’ve been avoiding.


End file.
